Mia Families Briefed On New Photos

October 23, 1992|By Terry Atlas, Chicago Tribune.

WASHINGTON — Delving into a newly obtained trove of Vietnamese photographs and documents, the Pentagon has begun contacting POW-MIA families with information about the fate of Americans missing since the Vietnam War, administration officials said Thursday.

Only a few of the families have been contacted, and U.S. officials say it`s difficult to determine yet how far this new documentation from formerly secret Vietnamese military archives will go toward closing the books on the 2,266 military personnel still unaccounted for 19 years after the last American troops withdrew from Vietnam.

Along with some 4,000 photographs and documents, the Vietnamese may also turn over personal items of American soldiers and airmen, such as flight suits and helmets, that could eventually be given to their families.

The Vietnamese government recently acknowledged the existence of all this material to the U.S. government after an American researcher in Hanoi came across documents in a military museum several months ago. The researcher, Ted Schweitzer, who reportedly was an intelligence operative in Vietnam during the war, had been in Hanoi working on a book about the Vietnamese army.

But there also are unconfirmed accounts that the information surfaced as the result of a covert U.S. operation that was assisted by factions in Vietnam eager for normal diplomatic and trade relations with Washington.

``We believe the Vietnamese put it in a place where the Americans were sure to find it,`` said a Republican Senate staff member who closely follows the POW-MIA issue. ``The historian is a middleman; it was found by someone else whose identity I cannot reveal,`` said the aide, who requested anonymity. Retired Army Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., President Bush`s special envoy to Vietnam on POW-MIA affairs, is scheduled to brief the president Friday morning on the new information, which includes photos of Americans taken by Vietnamese combat photographers.

``This is a major breakthrough that`s happening over there,`` Bush said Thursday in an interview on CBS-TV. ``But I need to know how major.``

With less than two weeks before Election Day, Bush will have to step carefully to avoid appearing to use this emotionally charged POW-MIA issue to boost his political standing.

White House officials denied a report in the Los Angles Times that Bush now would move quickly to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam. Families of the missing Americans have opposed normalizing relations until the POW-MIA issues are resolved.

Officials said Bush may make a limited gesture toward easing the 18-year trade embargo beween the countries in response to the improved Vietnamese cooperation. ``I must be satisfied . . . that all obstacles about POWs and MIAs have been removed`` before moving ahead with diplomatic relations, Bush said.

Many photos reportedly show Americans killed in ground combat, in plane crashes or at the hands of their Vietnamese captors. Some are pictures of Americans who were returned after the war, according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who accompanied Vessey on his mission to Hanoi last week.

Administration officials refused to confirm a report circulating among POW-MIA activists that the Pentagon had contacted the family of an Air Force officer from Kentucky, Lt. Col. Joseph Morrison, after obtaining a photo showing his body in the wreckage of his fighter aircraft, which crashed in 1968.

The officials said it will take many months to analyze the photos, some of which the Vessey mission brought back from Vietnam. There are plans for a team of American researchers to go to Vietnam to further review the newly available information.

Many of the photographs are duplicates or show the remains of Americans already known to have died in the war. Some are expected to document the deaths of personnel whose status has been unknown.

POW-MIA activists were disappointed that the Vietnamese provided nothing that resolves their concerns that there might still be Americans alive and being held in Vietnam against their will.